


Clash

by dalula



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Injury, Car Accidents, Gen, Hospitals, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:36:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalula/pseuds/dalula
Summary: There’s so much blood. It’s covering every surface; the road, his clothes, your hands. It coats your skin, thick and staining, even as you try to rub it off on your jeans. Your phone screen is smudged with red and a call handler’s voice crackles through the speakers. The words they’re speaking are impossible to take in, you blanked it out once they said an ambulance was on its way. You’re too distracted by Mituna’s limp body in your arms.
Relationships: Mituna Captor & Kurloz Makara
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Clash

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: ambulance ride
> 
> dad 1 + 2 idea was stolen lovingly from [brainbent](https://brainbent.tumblr.com/)

There’s so much blood. It’s covering every surface; the road, his clothes, your hands. It coats your skin, thick and staining, even as you try to rub it off on your jeans. Your phone screen is smudged with red and a call handler’s voice crackles through the speakers. The words they’re speaking are impossible to take in, you blanked it out once they said an ambulance was on its way. You’re too distracted by Mituna’s limp body in your arms.

He’s heavy like people are when they’re asleep, all loose and unresponsive. You don’t know where the worst of his injuries are; the blood seems to be stemming from everywhere. You try your best to remember what the procedure is for dealing with a car accident victim. Do you lay him on his side? No, that’s seizures, right?

You’re paralysed by panic. The night is dark and made even darker by the lack of streetlights or stars. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for that car to miss you, you’re wearing all black and shuffling around half-drunk at three AM. It hurts so much more knowing this is all your fault. Mituna wouldn’t have needed to push you out of the way if you had just listened as you crossed the road like every first grader is taught. God, you can’t even remember whose idea it was to go partying. Is that another reason you’re to blame?

With little else to do, you check his pulse again. It’s getting weaker, and his breathing is slower. It makes a desperate whine burn through your throat. Your hands are shaking and you have the urge to run a mile. The lack of action is making your adrenaline riddled body freak the fuck out but there’s nothing you can do but wait.

“Tuna?” Your voice is high and scared sounding even to your own ears. The words you want to speak get mangled in your throat, choking around the pained noises you’re making. You don’t know what to say that will make him open his eyes and talk to you. If he would only talk then things would be alright; he’s always been the voice for both of you.

You don’t hear the wailing of the ambulance until it turns the corner and you’re blinded by flashing colours and bright headlights. It pulls to a stop just behind you and you watch the paramedics blearily as they rush a stretcher over. There’s a surge of animal fear as they carefully lift Mituna onto it and you lunge for him as if they’re going to take him away from you. Strong, arms encircle your waist and hold you back, unyielding even as you struggle with whatever strength you have left. They start talking quietly in your ear, explaining calmly where they’re talking Mituna and that you did the right thing by calling them.

They let go once you seem reasonably in control of yourself. You’re ushered into the ambulance after Mituna and a blanket is put around your shoulders as you sit down. You’re offered a pat on the back and some tissues. You weren’t even aware that you were crying.

Mituna lays motionless on the stretcher in front of you, his eyes closed as the ambulance staff connect him to the beeping machines around you. Shaking, you reach out and take his hand, half hoping your touch will make him wake up and tell you he’s fine but he doesn’t. His skin is worryingly cold but if you focus on that you’ll work yourself into a panic.

A paramedic close to you murmurs to her coworker. Their conversation is hard to hear, especially through the fog in your brain, but you catch the words ‘ _ serious head trauma _ ’. You want to ask them what that means and if someone can survive that and be okay, but you can’t get yourself to lift your eyes off of Mituna or force your throat to work.

It occurs to you that you need to inform his dads about what’s happened. Your hand is still clenched around your phone and your muscles ache when you let them relax. Maybe the hospital will have Mituna’s details on record and they can call his dads instead. It’s not a conversation you want to have, especially while you can barely drag enough breath into your lungs. You hope they’re not angry with you.

A man sits beside you and starts asking you about how Mituna got hurt. You recognise them as the person who held you back from clinging onto your friend’s prone body, his voice is as slow and soothing as it was before.

“Car,” is all you can bring yourself to say. Talking to new people makes you anxious but you’re too drained to feel much more than a need to pass out and sleep until this all goes away.

The paramedic tries a few more lines of questioning before he accepts that he won’t get any more out of you right now. Even if you did know if Mituna was allergic to any medication or if he has medical insurance, you doubt you could remember it right now. Every thought you try to cling onto absconds before you can focus on it. The only thing stark and inescapable right now is the screech of tires, the smell of blood, and the image of Mituna’s broken body lying on the road.

The drive might last minutes or an hour, you have no concept of time. Everybody moves so quickly around you as they take Mituna from the ambulance and into the hospital, so much faster than your dazed mind can keep up with. The rush of adrenaline you were feeling earlier has seeped out of you and left you feeling exhausted.

The hospital staff point you to the bathroom, despite you not needing a piss. When you look in the mirror, however, you realise why they sent you here. Dried blood has crusted your hands and clothes a reddish-brown. You have to take a moment to comprehend the fact you have your best friend’s blood smeared over your body like war paint. You’re eager to turn the tap on and wash away the gory site. Red swirls down the drain while you fight the urge to throw up.

You don’t want to stay in the bathroom any longer than you have to, so you hurry out of the colourless expanse and into a waiting area with uncomfortable-looking chairs. No one’s telling you what they’re going to do with Mituna or if he’ll even survive this, no one seems to know you’re there at all. You sink into the most shadowed chair you can find, the one in the corner, and embrace your invisibility. People rush past you without ever taking note while you watch them with a disassociated interest.

People watching. Mituna calls. Called? Calls you a creep for doing it but you like observing people. Seeing what they do when they think no one’s watching.

Mituna’s dads show up at some point. How much time has passed, you’re not sure, you’ve been trying to drown out the sound of the hospital’s clock ticking. You must look awful because they take one look at you and pull you up for a hug. A miserable part of you tells you to enjoy it while you can, they won’t want to look at you after they find out it could’ve been you that got hit instead of their son.

They talk to you while all three of you wait and your throat has loosened enough to give them more details on what happened. You want to leave out how Mituna pushed you from the car’s path but a knot of guilt tears at your gut and makes you insist just how heroic he was. That he was hurt saving you.

You feel them tense and pull away and you prepare yourself for their anger.

Dad One, as Mituna lovingly calls him, the one that looks so similar to his son it makes your eyes sting with fresh tears to look at him. He holds your face in his hands, his expression sympathetic, and tells you they don’t blame you at all and how glad he is you were with him. You finally let the tears fall, the sound of your sobbing overlapping the comforting words they’re both speaking. It feels like the last of your energy is being used but the cathartic feeling it brings you is almost worth it. You just want Mituna to be  _ okay _ .

They stay huddled around you in a protective circle while you wail into Dad One’s shoulder for longer than you’ll admit. You wouldn’t have noticed the nurse approach if Dad Two hadn’t walked away to talk to her. His expression is grim but it doesn’t collapse into devastation; Mituna must be alive.

“You can go see him.” She gives you all a small, sympathetic smile and takes you to the room where he’s held.

At the boundary of the room, you’re hit with a fear of what you’ll find on the other side of the door. His injuries are bound to look worse in the stark lights of the hospital, it might be selfish but a part of you doesn’t want to see him broken and small in such clarity. You already know your nightmares will be full of him, you don’t need another image to haunt you.

Sighing, you already know you’ll enter his room. You won’t leave him now when he needs you most.

He’s been cleaned up and has a range of different tubes attached to him. His head has a large, white dressing on it, his right arm is bandaged thickly, and his legs are fortunately covered by the bed’s blanket. You hate seeing him so pale and lifeless.

Without waiting for permission, you go to his side and take his hand. His skin is warmer now than earlier, you notice with relief.

Dad One goes to ask the doctor a question, maybe about how serious the damage is, when he’s interrupted.

Mituna’s eyes are wide as he stares blankly at the ceiling. He opens his mouth and screams incomprehensible, confused, and scared.

**Author's Note:**

> continues to hurt my favourite characters with my grubby, sadistic hands and name all the fics after caravan palace songs


End file.
